Elon Musk’s Twitter deal is “temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users.”
This afternoon, the Tesla chief announced that his $44-billion takeover of Twitter is temporarily on hold until there is more information on fake users and bots on the microblogging platform. The deal has been halted till it can be ascertained whether spam or fake accounts represent less than five percent of the site's total user base.
“Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users,” Elon Musk tweeted. His announcement came after Twitter estimated in a filing Monday that spam accounts made up less than 5 per cent of its monetizable daily active users.
Although the Twitter deal has seen more than its fair share of ups and downs, not everyone was surprised at Musk’s announcement.
“Not entirely surprised. Tesla shares rally on the news that #Twitter deal is temporarily on hold, Twitter stock drops,” wrote Shereen Bhan, Managing Editor, CNBC-TV18.Not entirely surprised. Tesla shares rally on the news that #Twitter deal is temporarily on hold, twitter stock drops #Tesla https://t.co/2x6hgGDoMM
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— Shereen Bhan (@ShereenBhan) May 13, 2022
Several other journalists also noted that the announcement sent Tesla stock up
Twitter down, Tesla up
— Simon Gompertz (@gompertz) May 13, 2022
Twitter down, Tesla up.
— Maria Tadeo (@mariatad) May 13, 2022
Pre-market
Tesla up 5%Twitter down 22% https://t.co/lgweI1DTEs
— Savio Shetty (@abeautifulmind7) May 13, 2022
One more option: just an attempt to temporarily manipulate Twitter or Tesla stock price
— Joseph Burgess (@JKTBurgess) May 13, 2022
Many were convinced that Musk had no plans of buying Twitter at all
It looks like I was right all along. You never actually intended to buy #Twitter. You were bluffing the entire time. How many Twitter shares did you sell before tweeting this announcement?
— Peter Schiff (@PeterSchiff) May 13, 2022
In a surprise to no one, the Twitter deal is on hold. https://t.co/lQHoL09RLG
— Meg Coffey (@TexanMeg) May 13, 2022
Twitter had earlier this month estimated that false or spam accounts represented fewer than 5% of its monetizable daily active users during the first quarter, when it recorded 229 million users who were served advertising. It also said it faced several risks until the deal with Musk is closed, including whether advertisers would continue to spend on Twitter.
Musk, the world's richest man and a self-proclaimed free speech absolutist, had said that one of his priorities would be to remove "spam bots" from the platform.
(With inputs from Reuters)
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